Church of Scientology Reply to the German Government’s Defense of its Discrimination
For further information contact:
Leisa Goodman
(323) 960-3500
e-mail: humanrightsofficer@scientology.org
Church of Scientology Reply to the German Government’s Defense of its Discrimination
The Committee reiterated these criticisms in 1997 and again requested that “sensitizing” sessions for judges be discontinued.
* The New York Branch of Deutsche Bank has paid out more than $125,000 in compensation and damages and apologized in writing to settle a religious discrimination suit brought in federal court by an American Scientologist in September 1997.
* In June 1997, the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, England, warned that “In Germany, democracy is used as an ideology to impose conformity.... [r]ecent years have seen an astonishing and, for post-war Western Europe, unique policy of official, and officially endorsed, vilification of and discrimination against certain of these [religious minority] groups....”
* In February 1997, a U.S. Immigration Court granted asylum to a German citizen who had made a clear and convincing showing of a well-founded fear of persecution by the German government solely because of her religious belief.
* As part of a fact-finding mission to Germany in late 1996, an Ad Hoc Committee composed of two members of the British House of Lords and three eminent scholars examined the complaints of 15 minority religions and interviewed German government representatives. The Committee reported that “The German government is not only failing to fulfill its obligations to protect the rights of minorities under the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it is also directly responsible for fostering a climate of intolerance against them.”
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For further information contact:
Leisa Goodman
(323) 960-3500
e-mail: humanrightsofficer@scientology.org